


Song for the Lost Ones

by ant5b



Category: DuckTales (Cartoon 2017)
Genre: Background Webby/Lena, Child Poverty, F/F, Let Lena have a family 2018, Past Child Abuse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-23
Updated: 2018-10-23
Packaged: 2019-08-06 16:28:44
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,599
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16391171
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ant5b/pseuds/ant5b
Summary: Lena has everything she ever wanted: a home, a family, her best friend. But she still can’t sleep.





	Song for the Lost Ones

The nicest place Lena had ever lived in was a house abandoned on Christmas Eve. 

This was at the beginning, when Lena was still making her way, piecemeal, to Duckburg from Naples. She’d celebrated her second birthday that year, but it would be another year until she learned what birthdays meant for normal people and how little they mattered for someone like her. 

She’d been using Magica’s resources to move around Europe, money and treasure she’d squirreled away in various countries. Lena was perpetually thirteen, so getting a job was rather out of the question. Although she picked up pickpocketing fairly quickly, since more likely than not, Magica refused to allow Lena the use of her personal stores to pay for food or lodging. 

It was late December, and they were in Paris. 

Or rather, they were on the outskirts of Paris, heading to an ancient ruin Magica vaguely recalled which supposedly held some sort of magical talisman. Magica ranted, at length, about the talisman’s restorative power, but Lena listened with only half an ear. 

She was distracted again, as was often the case when it came to the strange, normal world she always existed on the edge of. 

In the weeks leading up to this particular night, as the cold grew in intensity, Lena had seen lights strung in the streets and on trees, shop windows aglow with desserts, red, green, and gold decorating people’s homes. It was as if, contrary to the growing cold, the rest of the world became warmer, softer, beckoning Lena toward every open doorway. But the more Lena longed for the warmth, the colder she felt, because she knew that she did not belong in that world. 

Lena stowed away on a truck heading for the countryside. 

They reached a small village, and Magica had her jump off in a wide empty field, buried in snow and sparse save for a cluster of trees and a farmhouse in the distance. The ruins were about a day’s hike, which Lena refused to make that day. 

The truck she’d hidden in had been open to the elements, and the snow she stood in now reached almost to her knees. She felt frozen to the marrow and hadn’t yet learned to be afraid of Magica. So she said no, and said she’d lose more than a few fingers to frostbite if they continued. 

Magica had relented (she was too weak to argue much back then, her hold on this plane yet still tenuous), and Lena started walking toward the farmhouse, the only structure she could see for miles when she slowly spun in place. 

She had some half-formed hope of sleeping in the house’s adjacent barn without the owners knowing. But the closer she got, the more she began to suspect that there was no one home at all. 

The farmhouse was beautiful, made of mottled gray stone with pale blue shutters. The roof was blanketed in snow, and the path to the doorway had not been swept clear. There were no lights on in the house, and no car in the driveway. 

Lena had little trouble breaking in, and found that all of her greatest, most secret hopes had been realized inside. 

There were lights and garland on the mantelpiece, a glistening tree by the fireplace, drooping with baubles and ornamentation. There was a stocked pantry, full of food she’d never seen before. 

Lena lit candles, and built a fire with the sweet smelling wood stacked beside the fireplace. She raided the kitchen and ate more than she’d eaten in days, ham and fruits and bread and desserts she didn’t know the names of. 

She fell asleep in front of the fireplace, snug under a huge blanket, and slept more soundly than she had, or would, in years. 

The next morning they left for the ruins, and did not come back to the farmhouse. 

 

Lena had lived in the cement block room under the amphitheater longer than she’d lived anywhere else. Squallor had become familiar, the cold and damp and the itch in her throat that never seemed to go away were her lot in life. She’d become numb to how miserable she was, because it was all she’d ever known. 

But then meeting Webby turned into befriending Webby, and loving Webby, and having sleepovers in a mansion with Webby. And Lena realized that maybe she didn’t have to _get used_ _to_ being miserable. Maybe she could tell Beakley about her situation. Maybe Scrooge could free her from her “aunt.” Maybe Webby would forgive her. 

Maybe she could be  _ happy.  _

Lena came to this realization too late, hunched over on the frigid floor of the Other Bin as the only person she’d ever considered family seeped into every pore of her existence, choking her, blinding her. Magica made her own body a worse prison than her cement block home. 

 

Of course, Lena would underestimate her new family. 

With their usual brand of blind optimism and determination, they journeyed to mystical hidden libraries, uncharted magical sites, all in search of a way to free her from Webby’s shadow. Webby and Scrooge would work harder than anyone, spend sleepless nights poring over magical tomes together while Lena looked on with a combination of burgeoning love and incredulity because no one had ever, ever tried to help her. 

Before she knew it, she had a body that was her own, never again Magica’s plaything. There were hugs and tears, and later a hand on her shoulder and Scrooge’s tentative smile. 

“I made you a promise some time ago,” he said. “If you think this family is still worth the trouble.”

And Lena was never good with words, had only ever used them to deceive. So she stumbled, unused to sincerity, and having trouble putting her overwhelmed emotions into words because they  _ wanted  _ her.  _ Her, _ the girl who’d nearly torn their family apart in the first place. 

She forgot sometimes that Scrooge was nearly as awkward as she was. 

When it became clear that she couldn’t form a coherent sentence, Scrooge went to wrap his arms around her in what became an aborted embrace. He quickly made to pull away, coughing to hide his embarrassment, when Lena came back to herself. 

She stepped back into his arms, hugging him tightly and pressing her face into the front of his coat. 

It took Scrooge a second to respond, but when he did, his embrace was almost tighter than hers was. 

“Oh, lass,” he murmured, cupping the back of her head. “We’ll have to help each other get used to this family thing, aye?”

 

And so Lena McDuck was born, quite literally, as her adoption papers were the first tangible proof that she existed, that she was a person.  

She was given a room down the hall from Webby’s, and was allowed to decorate it however she liked. Her bed was the softest she’d ever slept in, she had two windows taller than she was, and more warm blankets and clothes than she knew what to do with. 

It was everything she’d ever dreamed of when she peered through the windows of strangers’ homes and saw a family sat down for dinner, when she saw the green and red and gold of Christmas and wanted that for herself. 

But no matter how tired she was, she couldn’t sleep. 

The sounds in the mansion were strange. There was Duckworth vacuuming in some far-flung corner, wind rattling the trees outside her window, the creaks and groans of the mansion settling. Lena became hyper aware of them all, unable to ignore them in favor of sleep. 

She hated it, but she missed the draft in her room under the amphitheater. She missed the sound of wood creaking above her, the distant lapping of waves, the horns of boats passing by in the bay. She missed the concrete box that had been her prison and her refuge and she hated herself for it. 

After a week of little to no sleep, Lena decided to do something with her time other than lay in bed staring at her ceiling. 

She stepped out into the hall, lit gloomily by long squares of moonlight through the windows. Using her phone light to guide her, Lena made her way down the kitchen. Maybe she’d try to find Louie’s stash of snacks. 

She’d memorized the mansion’s layout on her third sleepover with Webby, learned the quickest escape routes and the best way to get to Scrooge’s bedroom without being seen. 

There was no need for subterfuge now, though Lena still walked slowly, taking in the massive portraits above her and the priceless tokens of a lifetime’s worth of adventures on the walls. They loomed over her, ponderous and damning, and she felt worthless and out of place in their shadow. 

What could  _ she  _ offer the world’s greatest adventurer other than another mouth to feed? 

The nephews at least were related to Scrooge, and Webby was his friend and housekeeper’s granddaughter. What was Lena in comparison? A piece of his arch-enemy’s shadow that was desperate enough for family to call Magica “aunt.” 

Her black thoughts matched the gloom that surrounded her, at least until she turned a corner and saw light spilling out into the hall. 

Someone was in the kitchen. Now that Lena wasn’t so in her head, she could hear the whine of a boiling kettle, and the soft slap of webbed feet on the linoleum. 

She had half a mind to turn around and not look back. But she’d come all this way, and the thought of going back to her unfamiliar room was worse than having to interact with whoever was in the kitchen. 

The closer she got to the door, the more she began to hear whoever was in there. By the time she was able to recognize that they were singing a song about gold nuggets, it was too late to turn back. 

Lena pushed the door open enough to stick her head through. 

As she’d suspected, it was Scrooge puttering around the kitchen despite the late hour. He was in the process of putting the kettle back on the stove, a steaming cup of tea sitting on the counter beside his elbow. 

Before Lena could decide whether or not to leave, Scrooge saw her reflection in the side of the polished silver kettle. 

“Lena?” he startled, turning around to face her. 

She hadn’t seen Scrooge in the last few days, nor had anyone else, since he’d been locked in meetings with his board over the destruction of the Bin and the chaos Magica unleashed on the city. Lena knew he’d pushed the meetings back several times while trying to find a way to return her to her body, and she would’ve felt guiltier over it if he hadn’t gone on about how much he hated seeing his board of directors. 

But perhaps she should’ve felt more contrite back then, because Scrooge looked terrible now. 

He was in his cashmere robe, the collar of his pajama shirt rumpled and half peeking out. His head feathers were wild, he had dark circles under his eyes like someone had drawn on his face with a black marker. 

It reminded Lena a little too much of how he was like after the boys and Webby left, depressed and miserable and pretending like he was anything but. 

“Hey, Scrooge,” she said casually, as she actually entering the kitchen. “You look like you got hit by a bus.”

Scrooge snorted, choking on a surprised laugh. “Aye, I expect that I do. My board is many things, and  _ brief _ is not one of them.”

He went back to preparing his tea, nasty used teabag and all. “But what are you doing up? Last I checked, it was sometime around three in the morning.”

“Couldn’t sleep,” Lena shrugged, leaning against the kitchen table. 

Scrooge gave no outward reaction to her answer, but when he glanced back up at her she sensed that he didn’t believe her. “Tea?” he offered, as she watched him finish preparing his. 

It had been their Thing, before Magica possessed her, before the kids left. Tea at odd hours of the night, her guilt at betraying Webby tempered by the desire to see if everything Magica had ever said about Scrooge McDuck was true. 

But as was usually the case with Magica, most of what she said was skewed, overblown, or just flat out lies. 

Scrooge was kind to her, this random girl off the street who had a crush on his niece. He told her stories over tea, ridiculous and spellbinding in equal measure. Stories of his adventures, and, once, even of the men and women he’d “courted” in the past (the latter only after she became embarrassed by his good-natured ribbing of her and Webby). 

As payback, she’d called him old and made fun of him for saying “courted.”

But all of this, all these happy memories, were tainted because it was this connection that Magica had exploited. Because Scrooge spent time with Lena, because he trusted her, because he showed her how to “brew a proper cup of tea,” he let Magica into his home. 

As horrible, as terrifying as Magica’s release from the dime had been, it would’ve been so much worse if Scrooge had drunk the poisoned tea, if he’d collapsed and left Lena alone to face Magica for the first time. 

As it was, Lena hasn’t been able to drink tea since she came back. She knew it was stupid, like on top of all her other issues she needed a phobia of hot leaf water on the list. But all Lena could think about was Magica preparing the tea like Scrooge taught her, Lena’s hands going through the motions heedless of the way she screamed inside her head. 

Magica took her into the kitchen twice to make Scrooge’s tea after he spilled the first. Twice Lena was forced to go through the motions that Scrooge had taught her, to make something that would poison him. 

So, yeah. Lena didn’t want to drink any tea. 

She smiled at Scrooge through, or attempted to. “Nah, I’m good.”

Scrooge continued to stir his tea. When he looked up from at her, his expression was inscrutable. 

“You know I don’t blame you, don’t you, Lena?” he said, proving Webby’s theory that he could in fact read minds. 

Or Lena had just gotten way worse at hiding things, living with a family that was so genuine in their anger and affections. 

She shrugged, making a small noncommittal sound that could be taken for affirmation.

Fortunately, Scrooge knew not to press the matter. He set his teacup and saucer on the kitchen table, and gestured at the pantry behind him.  

“How about some hot cocoa, then?” he asked. 

Lena sighed like he’d twisted her arm over it. _ “Fine,”  _ she replied dramatically, plopping into the nearest seat. 

Scrooge retrieved a packet of cocoa powder from the pantry, and then pulled a mug down from the cupboard. 

“Are you ready to tell me what you’re doing up so late?” he asked. He was standing with his back to her as he poured the cocoa powder into the mug. 

“Right back atcha” Lena shot back. 

“Too much on my mind,” Scrooge said, as he lifted the kettle and filled the remainder of the mug with hot water. 

“Same here,” Lena said promptly. 

Scrooge huffed a small laugh, shaking his head. He still hadn’t turned around, even as he stirred the cocoa powder into the hot water. 

“It can be...tough to fall asleep in an unfamiliar place,” Scrooge eventually said, walking over to the kitchen table. He handed Lena her mug of hot cocoa before taking a seat across from her. 

Lena took a long sip of her hot chocolate to avoid answering. She ended up burning her tongue. 

Scrooge nodded like Lena had said something profound. “Did you know that until I was thirteen years old, I shared a bed with my two sisters?” he said contemplatively. “Matilda, bless her, would always hog the blankets, though she’d apologize up a storm the next morning. And Hortense kicked so much you’d think we had a bronco in there with us.”

“Must’ve been nice to get your own bed,” Lena muttered into her mug. 

Scrooge laughed. “I  _ didn’t. _ I left for America. I don’t think I slept in a proper bed for another two decades.”

Lena had a sinking feeling she knew where this conversation was going. She took another big gulp of hot chocolate, ignoring how it burned a path down her throat. 

“I had nearly twenty years of sleeping in hammocks on steamships, on dirt floors, under open skies. By the time I was able to get a real bed, I couldn’t stand the feel of it! For another ten years, as I traveled on business, I’d get put up in fancy hotels and only be able to sleep on the floor.”

“You sleep in a four poster bed,” Lena said dubiously. 

“Because I had over a  _ century  _ to get used to it,” Scrooge replied. “Even now I’ll find myself missing the corn husk mattress I had in Dawson, and that thing was absolutely  _ miserable.” _

Scrooge took a sip of his tea, and kept the cup in his hands. He seemed content to let the silence linger, but Lena was met with a choice. 

The refrigerator hummed, the sound filling the kitchen when Lena wasn’t taking obnoxiously loud sips from her hot chocolate. She tried to muster a smile in response to Scrooge’s half-hearted glare, but she didn’t have it in her. 

Her chair creaked as she leaned back, curling around her mug of hot chocolate. 

“I miss my old room,” she whispered. 

Scrooge put his teacup back on the table. “That’s okay,” he said. 

Lena glared at him, bristling with a fury she didn’t understand. 

“How is that okay?” she demanded, “It was just the latest dump I lived in. It was always cold, the ceiling leaked, I got sick all the time. I shouldn’t  _ miss it.” _

“But when you were there, the world felt just a little bit less terrible,” Scrooge said softly. “Because it was familiar. It might’ve been awful, but it was safe. Right?”

“Stop making sense,” Lena muttered, shifting her glare down to her half empty mug. 

Scrooge laughed. “No can do, lass. I’m afraid when it comes to this subject, I’m something of an expert.” 

“But I’m not like you,” Lena said, the anger bleeding out of her. She was so tired. “I can’t just...get better.”

“Did you miss the part where it took took me the better part of a century to get used to sleeping in a real bed?” Scrooge asked wryly. “Neither one of us is ‘normal,’ Lena. We’re exceptional.  _ You _ are exceptional.”

To Lena’s embarrassment, she had begun to cry. And not cute Hollywood tears, but fat rolling tears that she couldn't stifle. She almost never cried before meeting this family. They were a bad influence. 

Scrooge left his side of the table to crouch beside her chair, and reached up to squeeze her shoulder.

“You’re good at this,” Lena managed to say, her voice hitching. She sniffed, wiping her tears away with the corner of her sleeve as casually as she could manage. 

He chuckled weakly. “Not really. I just said the truth.” 

Scrooge looked up at her as she continued to sniffle, his expression turning pensive. “What I don’t understand is why telling me this would put you in such a state,” he said, “it can’t be that you’re just missing your old room. Beakley told me that you’ve looked exhausted every morning this week, and she’s found you falling asleep in the oddest places.”

“Snitch,” Lena grumbled. 

“Lena,” Scrooge said, “if something’s wrong, I want to help. It’s my  _ job  _ to help, says so right there on your adoption papers.”

Her voice broke as she laughed, and just like that, the dam burst. The tears didn’t return, thankfully, but it was a near thing. 

“I know I shouldn’t miss my old room,” she said quietly, “I shouldn’t miss it because I live in a freaking  _ mansion  _ now, I’ve got a real bed and windows and I’ve got Webby and you and Donald and everyone, and I just feel so ungrateful because I’m  _ still _ missing a drafty room with concrete floors.”

“You’re not being ungrateful, lass,” Scrooge assured her, rising from his crouch with the slight crack of his knees. He hugged her gently, tentatively.“Everything I said before still applies. You’ve nothing to be sorry for.”

Lena was slow to reciprocate the embrace, but soon she was grabbing fistfuls of the back of his robe, and hiding her face in his chest. 

They eventually pulled away, though Scrooge kept his hands on Lena’s shoulders as he took a moment to observe her expression. Though her face was still blotchy from crying, the tension she’d been carrying was gone. She felt lighter, if drained. 

He smiled, and squeezed her shoulders once more before moving to clear the table. 

“Tell me about the best place you ever lived in,” Lena said, her voice slightly hoarse but wry and amused once more. 

“You first,” Scrooge replied, putting the dishes in the sink. 

Lena scoffed. “You just wanna show me up with some Mayan temple made of gold or a tropical island in the middle of the Bermuda Triangle.”

Scrooge shrugged innocently, and Lena stuck her tongue out at him. 

“Fine,” she said, “There was one place. A farmhouse.”    
  



End file.
